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I was very skeptical about the meaning of Dabangg until I watched the movie today. “Dabangg” is the word for fearless and bold people who do not go by norms and make their own rules. Believe me, the movie was true to it’s name.

I watched the movie along with my parents at a local cinema hall and it was an incredible experience. I am not going the describe the plot or the line up of events of the film. So the post remains to be a non-spoiler alert. 🙂

Debutant director, Abhinav Singh Kashyap, has made a deliberate attempt at directing an ordinary script in an extraordinary way. The movie is a remarkable amalgamation of strong dialogues and powerful action sequences. The strength in the dialogues is marked by both the strong accent of North-Indian Hindi as well as Salman Khan’s buffoonery style of delivering them. The action sequences are good but they are a bit long and sometimes I felt like they were unnecessary. I cannot but help myself from saying that they were redundant, no matter how genuine they seemed to be. Apart from these, the movie is filled with some nice compositions including an item number, Munni Badnaam Hui.

Watching Dabangg in a cinema Hall was a completely different experience altogether. We were accompanied by a loud, noise-making audience that whistled and danced at every dialogue/song. As soon as the movie started, the local audience started complaining about closing the entry doors in their characteristic way. That was followed by Salman Khan’s entry which was received with a huge response. For some time, we were not even able to hear the words uttered by the actor. The audience went gaga for every little action that Salman performed on the screen. For every song, the audience cheered up, danced and created a lot of ruckus by throwing coins and currency notes. The energy in the crowd was so high that for a moment I felt as if I was in a rock show and Slash had appeared on the stage.

The fashion sense in my town is highly inspired by the Indian cinema. Everybody in the town today owns a pair of Ray-Ban glasses, just like the ones worn by Sallu. And even the style of keeping them on the backside of the collar has also been copied. I learned about that new style in the interval.

Second half of the movie did not meet my expectations. As the Munni song appears in the second half, the audience went absolutely crazy and started dancing in the balcony. There was a group of 15-20 boys who were dancing as if they were dancing with Munni herself.

Altogether Dabangg was a great watch. I enjoyed the movie thoroughly. There is more than one occasion in the film where I’d laughed my heart out. Salman Khan was outstanding in the movie. Sonakshi didn’t have a big role, but she has justified the character that she played. Arbaaz Khan was good, if not better. I was taken aback by looking at the body of Sonu Sood. His role, too, was good and he has carried it very prominently. Vinod Khanna and Dimple Kapadia were okayish. So there we go. A complete masala entertainer with a little heart and some stupid comedy. It’s a must watch movie to all those who have been working hard for quite some time now. The movie will definitely relieve you. I give a 3.5 stars for the movie and believe me out of those 3.5, 3.499 are for Salman only. 🙂

Of course, there is no comparison between these two legends. But still, I like Amir’s work more than Shah Rukh’s.

There is no doubt that Shah Rukh ruled the heart of every Indian in the last decade, but this decade Amir was the Jack of all trades. What astonished me the most about Amir’s work is that he gave 2 movies of different genres back to back. One as an intrepid, young villager who picked up a cricket bat, instead of guns or swords, as a weapon against the enemy and peacefully won the battle against injustice and slavery. The other character was of a spoiled brat who understands the real meaning of love only after loosing one of his best friends. The time lapse between these 2 movies was just one month. Lagaan was released on 15th June, 2001 and DCH hit the screens on 10th Aug, the same year. (I’m glad I still remember the dates of release of most of the movies of my childhood days 😀 ) The first movie went on to become the most internationally acclaimed bollywood movie of all time, whereas the second one set a new trend of making movies exclusively for the metropolitan audience.

Apart from that, the success rate of an Amir Khans movie is a little high than a Shah Rukh Khan movie, this decade. Shah Rukh also gave movies like Paheli, One two ka four, Asoka, Bhoothnath, Hum tumhare hain sanam, PBDHH, etc which failed to make a positive impact on the box office. Whereas, for Amir the count was only 2 (out of the 9 films that he has signed this decade) viz., Mangal Panday and Mela.

I agree that to be a successful actor, striking the chord of the masses is as important as taking breath. But it also involves taking risks like getting into the shoes of a completely different character every time and mould it the way that makes the audience empathize with it. Of course, every protagonist has a different story to tell, but perfectionism is the quality possessed only by Amir and not by any other actor in bollywood. Also, this decade Amir has covered a wide spectrum of characters and not to mention, won the heart of the audiences in each of these roles. Whereas Shah Rukh failed to entertain the audience in different roles. His Character as Rahul in K3G was more or less similar to the character of Dev in KANK, leave apart the stories. Though he performed some tough roles such as Devdas and Kabeer Khan, I believe that his dedication never came any closer to Amir’s role of Sanjay Singhania in Ghajini.

I guess that’s lot of criticism for Shah Rukh. It’s not that I’m anti-ShahRukh or any thing like that, but I sure am a pro-Amir guy. 🙂

PS: As I mentioned earlier in my post, although both the actors are legends and have their unique ways of attracting audiences, I was more attracted towards Amir. It might be because of his perfectionism, or because of his dedication towards making quality movies, but Amir has successfully made a bigger room for himself in my heart that Shah Rukh.

Some people can make success out of thin air. SRK is one of them. His way of delivering dialogues has hardly changed from Darr(1993) to MNIK(2010). Back then in 1993, the audience used to appreciate the obsession for love of a stuttering character. But its a little hard to believe that even in 2010, people still love the same stuttering but with a little difference in the story. There must be something wrong. Either the taste of movies among the people hasn’t changed over the time or SRK has come up with a formula for success known as “stuttering” :P.
PS: Pun intended. 🙂

According to me, the following people deserve to win the following awards irrespective of their status and political influence in the industry. I have given the explanation for why I have chosen someone over the others wherever necessary.

Best Female Playback: Kavita Seth for Iktara (Wake Up Sid)

“Iktara” was the most romantic song of the year and will remain on my playlist for days to come. The music was great but that extra melody came from the voice and hence the award should go to her.

Lines like ” मौत अंत है नहीं .. तो मौत से भी क्यूँ डरें .. ये जाके आसमान में दहाड़ दो ” , ” ख्वाहिश में लिपटी ज़रुरत की दुनिया ” had a very deep impact on me and hence I feel that this man should be honored with the best lyricist of the year. Apart from performing the role of Prithvi bana brilliantly, this guy had also written the lyrics, gave his voice to them and tuned them with an excellent music which makes me hum the songs everyday. A masterpiece of lyrics can be found here under.

I have selected Amit Trivedi over the music maestro A R Rahman, and the magical trio Shankar-Ehsan-Loy for the simple reason that this man has tried all possible ways to attract the music loving junta in India and was successful in doing the same. “Emotional Atyachar” was not only the most heard song of the year, but also turned out to be the catchy-bollywood-phrase of 2009. The rock version of Emotional Atyachar was simply outstanding. Tracks like “Nayan Tarase” and “O Pardesi” have created a sensation in the music world. “Paayaliya” and “Dhol yaara dhol” were very melodious “Ye hi meri zindagi hai” and “Ek hulchul si” are refreshing tracks. Having tried so many different genres in a single album successfully, Amit clearly stands out to be the best Music Director of the year.

Although, the Mozart of Madras came up with a song of completely different genre, I was not convinced enough to believe that he can win the best Music Director of 2009. (Yes, I am talking about “Genda Phool”)

This guy definitely deserves the best actor in a comic role award. His role was appreciated by one and all and that gave him an instantaneous shot-to-fame. I laughed my ass off on every joke of his right from “mootra visarjan” to the speech that he gives and till the end.

Best Supporting Actor, Female: Gauhar Khan (Rocket Singh)

I feel that the actress has done a wonderful job in the movie.

Best supporting Actor, Male: Abhimanyu Singh (Gulaal)

Abhimanyu Singh as Ransa has simply astonished the audiences by his performance. His screen presence was simply superb. There was a spark in the actor’s eyes when he was portraying the image of the young politician. His style of delivering a dialogue is completely different from that of other actors and that makes him stand out of the herd.

Best Actress: Priyanka Chopra (Kaminey)

Best Actor: Shahid Kapoor (Kaminey)

Shahid Kapoor has come very far and has been successful in destroying his own image of a cute-ish kid from the minds of the audience by his performance in Kaminey. It is, indeed, one of the toughest jobs for any actor to play the role of Charlie/Guddu in a single movie and Shahid has executed it very beautifully leaving no marks behind. I feel that portraying the image of Charlie, a guy who haf fome prinfiplef in life (fhortcut.. chota fhortcut) and ifs chafing behind hif dreamf waff the most difficult part. And Faahid haf impreffed me. All I can fay ifs “fupper… fimply fupper”. That takes him to a level where no other actor has reached this year. According to me, he truly deserves the best actor award.

Best Director: Vishal Bharadwaj (Kaminey)

Best Film: Kaminey and Gulaal

Anurag Kashyap’s “Gulaal”, according to me was the best movie of the year. It had everything, love, lust, betrayal, politics, humor, excellent speeches, good music and mind-blowing dialogues. What else does a good movie need? Just because the star-cast wasn’t big, I couldn’t reject the movie from giving the award. So was the case of Slumdog Millionaire, there was no big star cast in the film and yet it received all the awards. So is Gulaal. The introductory speech by K K Menon is not just inflammatory but it also lays down a strong basement of the plot for the rest of the film. Apart from the story, every character is of a great importance in the film. Be it Bhati, Jadwal or Ransa. These actors may not be the top class actors, but they have performed excellently. K K Menon was distinctively ahead of all of them. “Mere paas Maa hai” was like the sarcastic reincarnation of the old, nostalgic Shashi Kapoor’s dialogue from Deewar. There’s much more in the movie that I can’t put into words and can only be experienced by watching the movie.And that makes Gulaal the best movie of the year.

Vishal Bharadwaj’s “Kaminey” not only had a brilliant story to display but also it was a huge commercial success. All the characters in the film were beautifully designed and the director had a clear vision of how every character has to be displayed on the screen. Shahid Kapoor has come out of his zone of comfort and gave his best to convince the audience that he was no more the cute lover boy, he’s grown up now and he could take up challenging roles too. No one would have expected Amol Gupte, the screenwriter and creative director of Taare Zameen Par(2007), to debut in the industry with a role as cruel as that of Bhope Bhau. But his performance left the left the audience jaw-dropping. Priyanka Chopra in the role of Sweety, again, has done an excellent job. Shahid-Priyanka lip lock was definitely the best kiss of the year, if only there was an award for this category. The plot was just excellent and so were the characters and that makes Kaminey the best movie of the year.

Raj Kumar Hirani’s “3 Idiots” was a commercial hit, but it didn’t make any impact on me. This can be mostly because of the lack of creativity (yes, almost all the jokes were copied from the forwarded emails) and a lot of masala towards the end of the movie. Thought, the film was a complete entertainer (without exception it was an entertainer) and there was some kind of give away message, it somehow missed the mark.

I once again declare that these choices are my personal and there should not be any confusion or misunderstanding with these and the original awards. I simply feel that these people should win the awards for their contribution to the world of cinema.